Head of Private Office, No.10 North

The Prime Minister’s Office enables the Prime Minister to deliver the Government’s overall priorities and to communicate the Government’s policies to Parliament, the public and international audiences. From the Policy Unit, Press Office, Switchboard and Custodians to the Events & Visits team and the Private Office support; the diverse No.10 team draws on varied expertise from across the Civil Service and beyond. The teams come together to deliver excellent service to the Prime Minister while also making No.10 a great place to work.

No.10 North is focused on delivering good growth in every postcode and ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to thrive, no matter where they live. No.10 North is the Prime Minister’s centre for devolution, place and local growth. Based in Manchester and working across the United Kingdom, it connects places directly to the centre of government. It brings together local leaders, HM Treasury and other government departments to resolve problems that no single organisation can solve alone.

The Strategy and PMO team provides the leadership, governance and coordination backbone of No.10 North. The team supports senior leaders, drives strategic planning, oversees programme delivery and ensures the organisation remains focused on its priorities. Working across governance, performance, business management, people and private office functions, the team coordinates activity across No.10 North and the wider Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, helping to turn ambitious priorities into effective delivery.

We are looking for an accomplished individual with significant Private Office experience to lead the No.10 North Private Office teams supporting the Director General of No.10 North and the Prime Minister’s Deputy Chief of Staff.

This is a senior leadership role at the heart of No.10 North. The postholder will act as Head of Office to both principals, ensuring they receive consistently excellent support and that their priorities, time, information, and engagements are managed strategically and effectively.

The successful candidate will lead two closely connected Private Office teams, establishing clear ways of working and ensuring effective coordination between the offices. They will provide strategic oversight across both principals’ portfolios, maintain a strong grip on competing priorities, and ensure that decisions, commissions, commitments, and follow-up actions are handled at pace.

A critical part of the role will be ensuring that the No.10 North Private Offices operate seamlessly with Private Office teams across Downing Street. The postholder will build strong relationships and effective ways of working across the wider Private Office network, ensuring that information, advice, commissions, engagements, and decisions flow effectively across organisational boundaries. They will ensure that both principals receive coherent and joined-up support that reflects the wider No.10 context.

The role requires someone who combines outstanding judgement with excellent organisational leadership. The postholder must be able to anticipate issues, identify what matters most and provide calm, authoritative advice in a fast-moving and politically sensitive environment. They will need to build trusted relationships across No.10 North, the wider Downing Street operation, Whitehall, and external partners.

Acting as a principal adviser and senior point of coordination, the postholder will play a central role in ensuring that the Director General and Deputy Chief of Staff can operate effectively, both individually and collectively.

This is a rare opportunity to lead two influential Private Offices at the heart of No.10 North. The successful candidate will work closely with the Director General and the Prime Minister’s Deputy Chief of Staff, gaining a broad view across strategic, policy, and organisational priorities.

The postholder will also play an important role within the wider Downing Street Private Office network. They will help create seamless connections between No.10 North and Downing Street teams, ensuring that senior leaders receive joined-up support and that shared priorities are managed coherently across the organisation.

The role offers significant scope to shape how the two offices operate, build talented and resilient teams, and improve the systems through which senior decisions and priorities are translated into action. It would suit an experienced Private Office leader who enjoys working at pace, bringing order to complexity, and enabling senior leaders to operate at their best.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the Private Office teams supporting the Director General of No.10 North and the Prime Minister’s Deputy Chief of Staff, setting clear priorities, standards and ways of working.
• Act as Head of Office to both principals, taking overall responsibility for the quality, timeliness, and effectiveness of their support, and ensuring their time and activity remain focused on the areas of greatest impact.
• Create a cohesive and resilient Private Office function, while ensuring that each principal receives support tailored to their responsibilities and priorities.
• Ensure that decisions, commissions, and actions are captured, communicated, and followed through, with clear ownership and timely escalation where required.
• Ensure that the No.10 North Private Offices operate as an integral part of the wider Downing Street Private Office network, providing seamless and joined-up support through strong relationships, effective information-sharing and clear handover, cover, and escalation arrangements.
• Maintain strategic oversight of both principals’ forward programmes, ensuring that diaries, meetings, and engagements reflect their priorities and make effective use of their time.
• Oversee the flow of information into and out of both offices, ensuring that advice and briefing are timely, accurate, concise, and focused on the decisions required.
• Set and maintain high standards for written advice, briefing and correspondence, supported by effective systems for managing commissions, meetings, decisions, actions, and follow-up.
• Identify urgent issues and emerging pressures early, ensuring that they are triaged appropriately and brought to the principals’ attention with clear recommendations.
• Balance immediate demands with longer-term priorities, protecting sufficient space for strategic thinking, relationship-building and organisational leadership.
• Build an inclusive, high-performing team culture based on collaboration, pace, accountability, sound judgement, effective delegation, and continuous professional development.
• Regularly review and improve Private Office systems and ways of working, reducing duplication and strengthening coordination, information-sharing, resilience and consistency across No.10 North and the wider Downing Street Private Office network.
• Model the highest standards of integrity, discretion, professionalism, inclusion, and public service leadership, while promoting close working relationships with policy, strategy, communications, engagement, and operational teams.

We are looking for an accomplished Private Office leader who combines excellent political judgement, organisational grip, and a strong understanding of how to support senior leaders operating at the centre of government.

You will be comfortable working with ambiguity, competing demands, and rapidly changing priorities. You will understand how to distinguish the urgent from the important, when to challenge, when to escalate and when to resolve an issue independently.

You will bring clarity and structure to complex portfolios, ensuring that both principals receive timely, accurate and well-judged advice. You will be an excellent communicator, capable of commissioning and assuring high-quality briefing, communicating decisions clearly and building productive relationships across organisational boundaries.

You will understand that excellent Private Office support depends on seamless collaboration. You will be able to build trusted partnerships between the No.10 North Private Offices and Downing Street Private Office teams, creating clear routes for communication, coordination, and escalation. You will promote a genuinely joined-up approach in which organisational boundaries do not impede the quality or pace of support provided to senior leaders.

Most importantly, you will be able to predict issues and challenges: anticipating demands, managing risks before they escalate and ensuring that the Offices operate as a coherent, resilient, and high-performing function within the wider Downing Street Private Office network.

Essential skills and experience:

• Outstanding judgement and the ability to provide clear, candid, and well-balanced advice on sensitive or complex matters.
• A strong understanding of how government operates, including the relationships between Ministers, Special Advisers, senior officials, departments, and central government functions.
• Proven ability to establish seamless ways of working between teams, ensuring clear communication, effective information-sharing and coordinated handling of shared priorities.
• Demonstrable experience of managing competing priorities, rapidly changing demands and complex workflows while maintaining grip and attention to detail.
• Experience of leading, motivating and developing high-performing teams.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to commission, assess and improve briefing for senior audiences.
• Strong stakeholder-management and influencing skills, with the ability to build trusted relationships across organisational boundaries.
• The ability to create effective systems for managing decisions, commissions, actions, information and forward planning.

Desirable skills and experience:

• Experience of leading a Ministerial, Special Adviser, Director General, or senior executive Private Office.

Additional information:

Office for the Prime Minister policy is that a minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace. For some roles, due to their nature and the business need, this may be up to 100%. Requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Leadership
• Seeing the Big Picture
• Communicating and Influencing
• Delivering at Pace

We only ask for evidence of these behaviours on your application form:

• Leadership

• Learning and development tailored to your role.
• An environment with flexible working options.
• A culture encouraging inclusion and diversity.
• A Civil Service Pension which provides an attractive pension, benefits for dependants and employer contributions of 28.97%.
• A minimum of 25 days of paid annual leave, increasing by one day per year up to a maximum of 30.

Job contact :

• Name : No10Recruitment@no10.gov.uk
• Email : No10Recruitment@no10.gov.uk

Recruitment team

• Email : menurecruitment.grs@cabinetoffice.gov.uk

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